


To hell and back

by Icie



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, For more detail before reading feel free to ask in a comment, Mild Horror, Space-necromancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 02:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21366769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icie/pseuds/Icie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019





	To hell and back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dire_quail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dire_quail/gifts).

When she was a child, Elizabeth tore a hole in the universe with her tears. On that day, she had six birthday parties behind her, and knew what should be where in her life — more or less. She knew, at least, that she shouldn't be able to pass her hand through a gap that only existed from one side, and see her fingers crumble into fine sand and shards of glass. That day, she had tried to follow her hand as it dissolved, but sand and glass aren't tears, and the hole stitched itself together once she no longer had a face for them to stream down.

She had been attempting to tear reality apart ever since.

*

"Medic," General Iza said into Elizabeth's ear.

"On comms, General," she replied, diverting at least some of her attention to their words.

"Good. Stay on alert. They'll need you soon."

As if she ever had a moment of peace to begin with.

"I can't use them if they're sludge," she commented, as she rubbed the suture thread until it tightened the stitch into a knot snug against the skin. The general needed to be reminded of these things, occasionally.

"Noted," they said. "I will do my best to ensure they make it to you intact."

The corpse under her hands gasped as its heart juddered its way into a rhythm.

"Welcome back to the front line," she told it as it lurched and threw a wild punch in her general direction. She stepped back. It missed.

She picked up the checklist and marked off _general range of motion_.

"Sit down," she told it. 

It sat.

The soldiers she had designed were still in the testing stage. The high command always hesitated on approving technology that wasn't as simple as pressing a button and watching things explode, so it said something that she had even managed to progress the project to this stage.

"Speak," she instructed, "vocal test routine 7."

The corpse sang.

According to the file, before it was a corpse it couldn't hit a note to save its life. (Though it had died from bullets, unrelated to its vocal talents.) Now, it hit every note, crisp and clean.

She continued making her way through the checks. It continued to sing as she bent and extended its arms, then legs, then turned its head from one side to the other. Test routine 7 was an aria she had heard once as a child, and she hummed along with the corpse from time to time as she examined the rest of its functions.

She finished the tests at the same time that the corpse finished the song. It watched her as she smiled with satisfaction.

It swivelled its head. A second later she knew why, as five stretchers barreled through the double doors, the soldiers carrying them moving at a run.

She clucked her tongue at the first. "What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?" she asked.

"Ma'am?" the private on one end of the stretcher asked.

"Half a head and no bones isn't something I can work with, soldier." She picked up its foot and it rolled in a curve like it was filled with sand and not flesh and bone. As she ran a scalpel down what used to be a calf muscle, she discovered it moved like that because it _was_ filled with sand and not flesh and bone. Her lip curled as rust-red sand spilled from the stretcher and onto the floor.

The private on the other end of the stretcher gagged, but Elizabeth had to give her credit for overcoming it to force herself to speak. "Ma'am, the weapons they're using… we believe they are intentionally trying to stop the—" her eyes flick to the corpse, sitting upright on the examination chair with its eyes fixed on the private as she spoke. "The corpses, ma'am."

"It was only a matter of time," Elizabeth said. She moved to the next stretcher. She frowned, and shook it by its shoulder. It slid into angled slices, like the flesh was meat which had been cut for serving. She looked at the soldiers trying to ignore her gaze. "Well?" she asked.

"Your stitches, ma'am," one of them said, his eyes locked on the far wall.

She laughed. The soldiers flinched. "I suppose it's flattering that you believe I am capable of miracles." Inspecting the third dead body, she clucked her tongue. "Leave them. Perhaps I'll manage to fit one or two in before I go."

"You're leaving?" one of them blurted out. She could almost see the tension of having her in their base leaving their shoulders.

"Try not to miss me," she said.

The soldier stood to attention. "Of course, ma'am."

She laughed again. At least they knew how to be something like polite.

*

The ass end of the universe that Elizabeth was on her way to had been dubbed Hell. It was a nickname that it gained long before she took an interest in it, but it tickled her, nonetheless. Tales of things that ought not to exist were even more prevalent on the planets that circled it than they were in the rest of the worlds. Even taking into account the very human practice of making shit up, Elizabeth intended to take a look for herself.

The general had agreed to her leaving, with a few stipulations. General Iza giving her orders was close to an in-joke between them. Iza pretends that she can give Elizabeth orders, and Elizabeth obeys any orders Iza gives her as long as they were things she planned to do anyway. In this case, the general had ordered her to take company, return within five years, and leave as many new corpses to fight for the army as she could.

The look on the general's face when she gave the final count for what she had managed would sustain her for most of the trip.

"You're pleased, General?" she asked.

"Very," Iza replied. One of the many things that Elizabeth enjoyed about working with Iza over other generals was they never bothered to lie when a simple answer would do. Iza scrolled to the next page of the report. "They will be able to do their own repairs?"

"For the most part." The new generation of corpses were a cut above most enlistees, and they didn't need to eat or sleep. A perfect army. "I would recommend devising countermeasures for the weapons this planet is using before you send them out, but the others in the system are defenseless against soldiers who keep moving with holes in them."

"And their families live here," Iza commented, shutting down the report, and rubbing their temple. "That never plays well with the others."

"If moral gets too low, you could always turn them into corpses yourself," she said.

Iza sighed. "You are aware they call you 'The Necromancer', aren't you?"

Elizabeth smiled. "Not in my presence, they don't."

"Don't get killed in Hell," Iza said, as good as dismissing her.

Elizabeth nodded, and left for the other side of the universe.

*

The journey to Hell was a long one, but she had grown up since she was six years old, and while she couldn't reach through to other universes on command just yet, she could speed up the trip.

She had selected several of the older corpses to keep her entertained on the journey, and Iza had selected two of her "trusted advisors" with empty military records to watch over her.

The first time she yanked them a light-year closer to their destination, her two watchers collapsed to the floor. To be fair to Iza's spies, she hadn't warned them of what she was about to do, but that didn't make seeing them dry heaving onto the floor less satisfying. She dropped towels on their heads and went to the food preparation counter, stirring large spoonfuls of sugar into her tea.

"Did you volunteer?" she asked them, as they wiped sweat from their faces.

"Yes," said one of them, at the same time as the other scowled and said "No."

She chuckled and addressed the first. "Darling, if you're planning to lie you might try one that will be believed."

The first spy flushed, and began to formulate a reply. Elizabeth hushed her with a wave of her hand. "I don't give a damn. The two of you have been sent to make sure I don't scurry off to the enemy—something I have no intention of doing."

The second spy laughed. "You're claiming you're loyal?"

"How vile," Elizabeth said, and paused to drink her tea. "No, but I am practical. The empire's war will be fought with or without me, and I would rather not waste the time I've spent proving myself of use."

The second spy shook their head. "The other side calls you the pet necromancer."

Elizabeth beamed. "And _ours_ just calls me the necromancer."

*

They reached Hell after six and a half months. By the end, the spies could keep their meals in their stomachs whenever she pulled them through space, but they still found their seats quickly and turned green around the edges. Her corpses remained serene.

The spies gasped as they saw the planet called Hell for the first time.

"Don't forget to blink," Elizabeth said.

The planet shone. The tales said that it was formed of nightmares and the feeling of someone watching the back of your neck. Elizabeth could feel the _something_ that kept her universe separate from the one she had touched all those years ago growing thinner and thinner as she brought the ship down.

She entered the instructions for the ship's descent, and the ship began its first orbit of the planet.

All at once, it went wrong. Later, when she had room to think, she would discover that it was when the ship passed over one of the sixteen poles of Hell, but in the moment, she had been doing well to keep breathing.

The ship plummeted. The corpses screamed. And the spies dissolved into red mist that rushed towards her. Her eyes went wide, and then the mist curled into her nose, her mouth, her ears. She felt it slip between her eyelids and her eyes. It worked its way under her nails and between her teeth. She choked on it. She remembered to breathe, and managed a spluttering cough.

The ship slammed into the ground, and Elizabeth went flying. She tried to instruct the corpses to catch her, but her voice wouldn't come through the remains of the two spies. She supposed that she should have learnt their names. Perhaps that would have protected her from the powder that clung to her skin.

She flew through the side of the ship, and into the atmosphere of the planet. She breathed. The air which filled her lungs was from another world.

_Fuck! Sorry! Did you like them? I can bring them back just—_

Elizabeth spun around. She was both mid-air and collapsed in a heap in the sand. Both her mind and body straddled the barrier she'd worked so hard to bridge. The source of the voice was nowhere.

The red mist pulled away from her. She watched it coil in on itself into one large human shaped _thing_. Elizabeth laughed in disbelief. "They were a pain," she said.

_Seriously? Then why didn't you kill them?_

"The paperwork," she replied. Her head rang and her skin burned where the spy-mist was lifted off it.

_Oh._

The voice remained silent for a moment.

_What's paperwork?_ Then: _Wait, I know, I know, I know!_

Elizabeth's stomach sank. She never moved an inch — in either of the universes — but at the same time she felt an impact greater than when she flew out of the ship. Then, everything was still, and her mind was very full.

_Wow,_ the voice said, from within Elizabeth's own thoughts. _You do a _lot_ of paperwork._

"Rather," Elizabether said. "You might consider—"

_Ick! No, no way, never, nope. Those things are weird,_ the voice said over Elizabeth's unfinished suggestion that it might be more comfortable with one of the corpses. _They're like _super_ dead. Deader than you!_

"And I'm dead, am I?" She didn't know what else to say.

_Oh, _honey, it said. _You are so very, _very_ dead._

Elizabeth stood with shaky legs, putting one foot on the ground, then the other, and then repeating the process in the other universe. She tried not to think too hard about what she was doing, because that only seemed to make achieving what she wanted harder.

_That's the way,_ the voice said, almost absently. It felt like it was looking up from rummaging through Elizabeth's thoughts. _You made those things?_ it asked, and gestured to the corpses, managing to do so without limbs. It was like it pointed to the shape of them in her thoughts. It didn't wait for her reply. _You're so pretty._

Elizabeth flushed, and brushed the sand off her clothes. "Pretty and dead?" She tried to gather her thoughts, and the voice laughed and pushed them apart like a toddler destroying a tower of blocks. "And what are you?" she asked, scrambling to get anything coherent out.

The voice hummed, and stacked the bundle of Elizabeth's thoughts together in a line. It rearranged them, in a different order. She had the odd sensation that she was kissing the first girl she ever liked, and being punched in the gut by the third corpse she ever made, as well as seeing the empty seat where her mother was supposed to sit at the dining table as she was told that she was never coming home.

_I'm a demon, I think,_ it said. _And I'm going to be yours now._

Elizabeth breathed.

_Don't worry,_ it said. _I can help you do everything. I promise. I'll love you._

For the first time in a long time, Elizabeth believed someone who wasn't herself.


End file.
